View full sizePlain Dealer FileDim and Den Sum's general manager, Catie Hodgson, greets customers from the food truck during a visit to the Cleveland Clinic farmers market. Cleveland's first food truck plans to open a prep kitchen and brick-and-mortar restaurant and bar on West 25th Street, south of Lorain Avenue.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A popular food truck is putting down roots and several stores are moving to Ohio City, as momentum grows around the West Side Market.

Cleveland developer MRN Ltd. is filling spaces along West 25th Street south of Lorain Avenue. Food-truck phenomenon Dim and Den Sum plans to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant there in the spring. Entrepreneur Danielle DeBoe is moving her boutique, Room Service, to Ohio City from the Gordon Square Arts District. And fledgling retailer Salty not Sweet will leave the Collinwood neighborhood for bigger digs near Cleveland's venerable public market.

The deals are small, but they build on a theme of cultivating local food and small businesses in the neighborhood. Dubbed the Market District, the area is attracting young entrepreneurs with a passion for Cleveland.

The West Side Market is in the spotlight, approaching its 100th birthday in late 2012. And MRN, the developer that turned East Fourth Street into a dining and entertainment district, has been reviving the old United Bank Building at West 25th and Lorain and the retail strips to the south.

"In almost 11 years in real estate, I've never seen so many deals come together in such a short period," said Ari Maron, a partner with MRN. "A lot of people who are creative are seeing an opportunity to make their mark on a neighborhood in a way that's never really happened in Cleveland."

Maron has found tenants for much of Marketplace, a $20 million project that includes offices on the upper floors of the historic bank building. Crop Bistro & Bar, a Warehouse District restaurant, will move into the former bank lobby next year. Penzeys Spices has leased ground-floor space for their second Northeast Ohio store.

In the storefronts lining West 25th, the Voodoo Monkey tattoo shop is expanding. Dim and Den Sum is planning a prep kitchen, restaurant and bar in a 3,000-square-foot space.

Chris Hodgson, the 24-year-old chef-owner, said he needs a kitchen to support additional trucks. He is partnering with the team that owns ABC Tavern in Ohio City and the soon-to-open XYZ Tavern in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood to launch the restaurant and expand the business.

"Ari has been talking to me for a while about opening some of our operations on that side of Lorain, and this became the perfect tenant for it - funky, goofy, guaranteed to bring people to that side of the street," said Alan Glazen, managing partner of ABC, XYZ and the future Dim and Den Sum venture.

West 25th is luring some retailers away from other up-and-coming Cleveland neighborhoods. Since opening on Detroit Avenue in late 2007, Room Service has become known for eclectic products and DeBoe's ever-growing "Made in the 216" sales of local merchandise. As the store outgrew its 650 square feet, DeBoe could not find the perfect space nearby. Room Service closed this month and will reopen in Ohio City by late November, in 2,000 square feet that last housed an Amish furniture store.

"I've lived in Ohio City for six and a half of the eight years that I've been in Cleveland. It's so close to Detroit Shoreway that I just don't feel like it's a different neighborhood," said DeBoe, 33, who described herself as "hyper-obsessed with Cleveland" and who recently moved into an apartment downtown.

DeBoe and Candra Squire, the 31-year-old owner of Salty not Sweet, hope to gain traffic from the West Side Market and to bring new shoppers to the neighborhood. Squire started selling soaps, candles and other handmade goods on Waterloo Road in March, but business has been slow. She plans to stay in Collinwood through the holidays and to reopen in Ohio City in February.

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